On 12 April 2026, Hungarians ended sixteen years of Fidesz rule. The Respect and Freedom Party of Péter Magyar won 138 seats in the 199-seat parliament at a record turnout exceeding 79 percent [1]. European capitals breathed a sigh of relief. The problem is that this relief may prove premature. It does not answer the question that truly matters: whether Hungary under Magyar can become a state with which Poland and NATO’s eastern flank can build a genuinely shared policy, or whether the change in Budapest will not go beyond declarations.

Péter Magyar is neither an outsider nor a political newcomer. He comes from a legal family deeply rooted in the Hungarian state establishment: his grandfather, Pál Erőss, was a Supreme Court judge and a well-known television popularizer of law, while his great-uncle, Ferenc Mádl, served as President of Hungary from 2000 to 2005 [2]. Magyar himself spent years functioning within the system of power, affiliated with Fidesz. He worked as a diplomat, including in Brussels, and later in the circle of Viktor Orbán, held positions in companies linked to the ruling camp, and until 2023 was married to the Minister of Justice in the government he now openly contests.

It was precisely his insider knowledge of the mechanisms of the state that determined the effectiveness of his campaign: he knew where the real pressure points were and how to turn them against the system he had himself helped to build. But that same proximity to the system is simultaneously the source of a fundamental unresolved question that will weigh on his entire term: whether his break with Fidesz is ideological or merely tactical. This question does not concern the past. It concerns what will happen when internal pressure proves stronger than the pro-European course.

TISZA is a right-wing party, and its pro-Europeanism is instrumental rather than ideological. Magyar built his campaign on criticism of corruption, state dysfunction and economic stagnation, not on a vision of Hungary as a country organically bound to the European political project. TISZA’s pro-European course stems from calculation: without unblocking EU funds, repairing relations with partners and ending isolation in the Council of the EU, there is no room for stabilising the state [3]. This is a solid basis for cooperation, but one dependent on whether the calculation continues to favour the pro-European course, rather than on any conviction that this course is right in itself.

The designated Foreign Minister, Anita Orban, reinforces the image of a change of direction while also clearly marking its limits. Between 2010 and 2015 she negotiated energy supply diversification, representing Hungary in the United States Congress. She left the Foreign Ministry in 2015 when Szijjarto signed an agreement with Putin on the expansion of the Paks nuclear plant and closed off the path of diversification in favour of tightening ties with Moscow [5]. Her return to politics is a programmatic signal, not a personal one. The same Anita Orban has nonetheless stated clearly that Russia will remain an important actor in Hungarian foreign policy and that Hungary will conduct that relationship in the service of its own interests. This is not a contradiction — it is a description of a reality in which contracts are binding and infrastructure commitments persist regardless of the composition of the cabinet [8].

Ukraine: The End of Sabotage, Not the Beginning of an Alliance

For sixteen years, Budapest wielded the right of veto not as a last resort to protect its own interests, but as an instrument for the regular paralysis of the EU’s eastern policy — blocking packages of sanctions against Russia, withholding financial support for Kyiv, and torpedoing successive decisions requiring unanimity. Recordings disclosed during the campaign showed that Szijjarto, between sessions of EU meetings, telephoned Lavrov to provide live accounts of the proceedings [6]. This mechanism will cease to function from the moment the new cabinet is sworn in. In practice, this means unblocking the ninety-billion-euro loan to Ukraine that Budapest had been obstructing for months, as well as ending the veto on further sanctions packages. These are measurable changes whose value for Kyiv can be calculated. For the coherence of EU policy towards Russia, this is a systemic change: a single blocking vote can paralyse decisions requiring unanimity, and for sixteen years Budapest was that vote, habitually.

Kyiv will not, however, find an ally waiting in Budapest. Magyar spoke during the campaign of making support for Ukraine conditional, and he delays the question of Ukrainian EU accession by making it subject to a national referendum — an equally effective instrument of obstruction as a cabinet veto, but harder to challenge from outside. The Hungarian minority in Zakarpattia is a subject the new government intends to make a priority of its first hundred days, which guarantees tensions in bilateral relations from the very outset [9]. There will be no military support for Ukraine. The balance sheet for Kyiv is therefore positive but asymmetric: an active saboteur disappears from the Council of the EU; a new ally does not appear. This is a distinction worth stating plainly, before the post-election euphoria obscures it.

Poland and the Possibilities That May Disappear

For Poland, the change in Budapest carries significance that reaches far beyond bilateral relations. In recent years the Visegrád Group was a hollow format: Orbán instrumentalised it selectively when it served his purposes, and bypassed it when comparison with Warsaw would have been politically inconvenient. Throughout this period, Poland had to operate on the eastern flank without a natural partner, often against Budapest, while Hungarian vetoes remained a constant element of the calculus that Warsaw had to factor into every EU negotiation concerning the east. This is changing. Anita Orban has announced the rebuilding of V4 as a platform for genuine Central European coordination and named the repair of relations with Poland as one of the most important priorities of the new diplomacy. Magyar’s first foreign visit as Prime Minister is to take place in Warsaw, before Vienna and Brussels, and Tusk said after the results were announced that he had spoken with Magyar about the visit on election night itself [7][10].

The possibilities that are opening up are concrete. A coordinated Central European voice in budget negotiations with Berlin and Paris, a common position on the eastern flank, coordination on matters where Poland has for years been acting without a natural partner in the Visegrád format. Poland has invested more in its relationship with Washington over the past decade than any other European ally: military bases, equipment purchases, political capital spent on building its position as a strategic US partner in the region. The time has come to conduct the same calculation with respect to Budapest: what does V4 mean with a Hungary that has ceased to be Russia’s Trojan horse inside the EU, and how can this change be converted into a real strengthening of Poland’s position in Europe.

These possibilities may, however, quickly disappear, swamped by the daily demands of politics. The new government in Budapest will soon face internal battles that will consume its political resources: reforming a judiciary politicised by Fidesz, rebuilding public media, unblocking frozen European funds, attempting to settle accounts with corruption institutionalised through sixteen years of single-party rule. Each of these battles will intensify internal pressure, which is the natural enemy of ambitious foreign policy. Magyar knows this well, and it is precisely why the sequence of visits — Warsaw before Brussels — signals that the opportunity is meant to be seized quickly, before domestic politics begins to define the priorities.

Polish diplomacy should treat Magyar’s visit to Warsaw as a moment to formulate a concrete agenda for cooperation, not as a symbolic gesture confirming a change that has yet to prove itself in practice. That agenda has ready-made elements.

The first is coordination in the Council of the EU on matters where Poland has long acted without a Visegrád partner: eastern policy, sanctions against Russia, support for Ukraine. Under Orbán, Budapest was not so much absent as actively harmful. Changing this single parameter carries systemic value, even if the new Hungary does not become an enthusiastic advocate for Kyiv.

The second is joint positioning in budget negotiations. Poland and Hungary are the largest beneficiaries of structural funds in the EU. In recent years Warsaw has negotiated these matters practically alone, because Budapest was too discredited to be a credible partner. Reactivating this cooperation in the new budgetary framework after 2027 is a concrete interest of both sides.

The third is infrastructure. Anita Orban spoke of increasing connectivity and energy links between Poland and Hungary as one of her priorities. Rail and energy connections on the north-south axis have been underfunded for years. This is an area where declarations can be converted into projects with EU financing relatively quickly.

V4 Reloaded is possible. But only if Poland treats it as a political project requiring investment, rather than as a reward for a change of power in Budapest that Poland itself did not bring about. Whether the new Hungary proves to be the illusion of an ally or the beginning of genuine cooperation depends equally on what Magyar does and on what Warsaw does with this change.

References:

[1] National Electoral Office of Hungary (NVI), parliamentary election results, 12–13 April 2026, valasztas.hu; Interia, Partial results of the Hungarian elections. Seat distribution announced, 13 April 2026.

[2] Wikipedia, Péter Magyar, en.wikipedia.org; Al Jazeera, Who is Peter Magyar, Hungary’s new leader who trounced Viktor Orban, 13 April 2026.

[3] Financial Times / Interia, Opposition delivers regime change to Hungary after 16 years of Orban rule, 13 April 2026.

[4] Money.pl, The web of energy ties with Russia. Dependence only grows, 11 April 2026.

[5] Anita Orban, Power, Energy and the New Russian Imperialism, Praeger Security International, Westport 2008; Bankier.pl, The end of the Orban era? Anita Orban to unblock billions from the EU, 24 January 2026.

[6] TVN24, Peter Magyar and Anita Orban may redirect foreign policy onto new tracks, 12 April 2026, tvn24.pl.

[7] Bankier.pl, The end of the Orban era? Anita Orban to unblock billions from the EU, 24 January 2026, bankier.pl.

[8] Interia, Spectacular lead in new Hungarian poll, 7 February 2026, wydarzenia.interia.pl.

[9] TVN24, Anita Orban may lead Hungarian diplomacy. Wants to repair the thousand-year friendship with Poland, 27 January 2026, tvn24.pl.

[10] Rzeczpospolita, cit. Donald Tusk after the announcement of the Hungarian election results, 13 April 2026, rp.pl.